As well, Ill demonstrate here certain key new features and what they mean for prints. In light of the addition of Violet ink to the SC-P900 inkset, I considered it useful to also test this printer against the SC-P5000 (which has a very wide gamut but no violet ink) using the Onsight printer evaluation target made by Scott Martin (Figure 64). The result with CB ON is a bit less linear than that with CB OFF, but neither of them are strictly linear. Epson advised me that the impact of including violet ink is more apparent in the rendition of Blue than of Violet. Profile characteristics are similar between the OEM and Mark profiles (Figures 24, 25). Well explore the many options for processing your images and focus on the art of printing. The Speed/Quality slider for this paper has only two available notches: the 4th from the left provides 1440 DPI quality, as shown in Figure 12, and the last one 5760 DPI. You will be asked to check whether the paper is skewed. I do this for one gloss-type paper (PK ink) and one matte paper (MK ink), being Epson Legacy Platine and Epson Legacy Fibre respectively. Quite a number of the bars depicting hue bias show values well exceeding 1.0, when ideally, they should all be around zero, or otherwise below 1.0. Epson recommends checking for the availability of a firmware update. These next steps are not on the LCD, they are in the Printer & Scanner panel of the computers System Preferences. Trying it again at minimum quality: 1440 DPI resolution, High-Speed ON and CB OFF, the printing time was 1 minute, 8 seconds. Printing worked fine, as seen in Figure RF 10, which is a photograph of the actual pano print laid on a table, 4 feet long 17 inches high. Epsons instructions for doing this could be improved, so I provide detailed guidance first, then show the app. You make a lot of friends with whom, more than anything else, you share a passion and love for photography in many ways. They just want to make sure you know this is an Epson product packaged by Epson and not tampered with by anybody else (Figure 2). of inked surface and so far only the Light Gray tank was replaced. The cost per ml of ink is much lower for the SC-P5000 because the cartridges hold 200 mL rather than 50 mL in the SC-P900. I think it more meaningful to show photos of the prints rather than JPEGs converted from raw files in the computer because those would not show whats on paper. I estimate that Ill print another 35 sq.ft. Ive grouped them into pairs for comparison. Each produces a different gamut volume (Figure 31) and Black Point, where one sees that the profile with CB ON has a slightly wider gamut than that with it OFF, particularly so for the dark tones (right side of Figure 31). As of the printers 4th day of use, the machine charge was CAD 0.32/standard print. The Black Point of 4.43 is nothing to write home about compared with other results achieved above. (Otherwise enter values for margins, but make sure the image size is reduced accordingly in Photoshop.) For both printers the resolution outcomes are fine. We are working hard to not only create content but also to build a robust site that can be expanded upon over time. Three paper options are of interest here: The ABW workflow in the Epson driver serves a different purpose from the more usual Application-Managed workflows using ICC profiles. This would provide the highest quality print for Epson Legacy Fibre paper. You could encounter a situation where the printer anticipates there may not be enough ink in one or more or channels to complete the job. For the Custom profiling, Condition D in Figure 32, highlighted in faint green, is the best, insofar as its Black Point is the deepest, its gamut volume the highest and its dE values similar to Conditions A and C, but with lower variance around the average, which is preferable, because lower variance means fewer colors with high dE values. The manual also provides guidance on moving from a wireless to a wired connection, in which case it appears unnecessary to re-install the driver. Much as I appreciate the artistic feel and non-glare surface of the finer matte papers, normally I dont print on them because I prefer the larger tonal range (deeper Blacks) and larger gamut volume of, say, luster coatings. The outcomes are somewhat close. With its three feeds plus the DVD printing device, it offers great versatility in the kind of media it will accommodate, including the ability to make long panoramas with the optional roll adapter. I then edited the stitched file under soft proof for Epson Legacy Fibre paper and printed it in the SC-P900 with my custom profile for Legacy Fibre paper discussed above, and RELCOL Rendering Intent. The three-dimensional projection is the two spheres for the two printers. Whether Case F or Case H, for Platine paper, one comes away with the distinct impression that on the whole tone and hue rendition are more accurate with ABW OFF rather than ON, but people printing with ABW is not necessarily aiming at colorimetric accuracy. The two primary sets of considerations are relative print quality and feature sets. (5) Continue feeding until you hear a beep then close the cover. The ink delivery system comes filled with shipping fluid, so it needs to be voided and ink replaces it on initial set-up. Notice in the upper right of the Media Installer interface there is a Refresh button. Once this process finishes, as indicated, it turns the printer off and on again, and leaves you with the LCD Home screen, ready to print. To some extent they are offsetting: more quality, less speed; Ill show the trade-offs below. On this basis, the cost of ink for a standard print is CAD 0.74. There is so much talent out there. The loading process consists of the following steps: (1) Start the printer, go to Paper Settings on the LCD, and select Roll Paper. For this paper, there are eight possible configurations to explore. The answer cuts different ways depending on your situation and needs, so Im not telling anybody what they should buy; but I do provide information facilitating a decision. Interestingly, although Epsons official advice has been to turn High Speed OFF for the highest quality, the results dont fully support that advice. It will vary from usage to usage depending on the interval and the number of equivalent standard prints made. These are printed with the Epson profile I did not make a custom profile for this paper because I would not use the paper for my own work, and the Epson profile produced a very satisfactory rendition of this very well-known test page. Neither my wife nor I could detect any difference between them, viewed side by side in daylight. Details further on. Im not posting different renditions of this photo here, because quite frankly, after making and studying three different prints of the same file, I could see no difference between them. Now, let us see the relationships of the photo to these gamut volumes (Figures 62 and 63). The SC-P900s comparators would be the SC-P800 it replaces, SP3880, or Canon Pro-1000.). Printing it on Baryta paper at highest quality: 5760 DPI resolution, High-Speed OFF and CB ON, took 9 minutes, 44 seconds. (2) Click on Print Settings in the Photoshop Print dialog, which takes you to the Epson printer driver. So well avoid such confusion from the start. Some driver options are different enough in the SC-P900 that its worthwhile explaining what they are. I examine the contribution of CB below. In Photoshops Image Size dialog, as usual, set the photos linear dimensions and the resolution you will send to the printer. This printer can produce more than enough gamut for most purposes most of the time. The dE results of rows 20, 21, and 22 show a generally excellent outcome for the Mark profile and a generally acceptable result for the dE(2000) set from the OEM profile (evaluation targets printed with High-Speed ON, as testing determined this to be slightly more accurate statistically than using High-Speed OFF. Its gamut is not as wide as that of a P5000, but few photos need so much gamut; its within the ballpark of its more relevant comparators (for example, several percentage points larger than the P800, exactly how much depending on the media and its profiling). Starting with the profile data (Figure 33 faint green panel, read from ColorThink Pro), the gamut volumes for the three profiles are similar, the Mark profile with CB OFF being about 2.5% lower. But do be aware, this is my estimate based on the stated assumptions nothing Epson has blessed or even had anything to do with. CB is not available for matte media. (1) In Photoshop (similar in Lightroom), first decide and determine the linear dimensions. Its seamless and keeps the printer features up to date. So, we come now to the menu of items for testing how well this printer makes prints to my mind the most important matter of the lot. (Note: The Baryta Paper Type was generic pending a specific paper; the driver is now updated with a specific Baryta paper, being Legacy Baryta II, forthcoming early 2021. Figures 35 (Case H) and 36 (Case I) provide a graphical comparison of the difference between highly satisfactory and less satisfactory outcomes respectively. I say appears because the technical conditions for testing the two printers are not strictly the same. Click on the name of the media type copy just created and click on the Edit icon (second from top-left). I had previously reviewed this software when it was in version 1.3.4. Epson provides this packaging to minimize risk of damage in transit. As before, the big divide in terms of printing control is the choice (in the photo application) between Printer Manages Color or Application Manages Color (e.g. EMI processes the selection (Figure EMI 13): Once processing is done, a new screen appears showing that the Hahnemuehle Bamboo Media is installed in the EMI system (Figure EMI 14). EMI is located in the Epson Software folder in your computer Applications folder. There are several tone settings, but the multiplication of testable conditions quickly becomes unmanageable and doesnt necessarily add much value to addressing the key matters of interest. If you lined it up properly, it will not be skewed so touch OK: After clicking OK, the paper will load. So, the range in printing time is about 10:1, depending on the paper and settings. The gamut volume and maximum Black of much canvas media are quite limited (in the case of Epson Canvas Satin about 512,387 and L*22 respectively (versus over 800,000 and L*3 or so from a high-quality Luster paper in this printer). Taking these in turn: Notice, I havent mentioned color or tonal accuracy as key matters of interest. The best result for maximum Black is the Column F case, with High Speed OFF and CB ON. (As a side note, in case anyone is thinking about a choice between the SC-P900 and SC-P5000: the SC-P5000 is a different class of printer meant for a high-volume production market, viz. I examined these questions only for the Dark tones, which will have to serve as an indicator for the rest (Figure 48). The data underlying this summary information appears in Figure 26. To use this iPhone/iPad app you need to set-up your SC-P900 printer as a wireless device. Once the print is complete a message in the LCD gives you an option to Eject and Cut which is the one I selected, as it moves the end of the print fully out of the printer and exposes the printed cut line, which really helps to make a straight cut. Small differences of gamut between printer models in the same general class dont matter for most photos. It is meant for proofing how reliably the printing system reproduces image file color values. These projections explain why there is no visible difference between the prints from the two printers and why differences of gamut volume data itself often amounts to less in reality than it may seem from the data. The target has added features allowing the very close examination of printer resolution. The options are as follows (all are 5760 dpi with High-Speed printing OFF; only CB varies): (A) Profile Target: OFF; Evaluation Target: OFF, (B) Profile Target: OFF; Evaluation Target: ON, (C) Profile Target: ON; Evaluation Target: OFF, (D) Profile Target: ON; Evaluation Target: ON. However, once into Cyan/Blue/Purple/Violet, their gamut boundaries are similar, except for a small portion of the Purple/Violet segment where the SC-P900 gamut is slightly larger. Well get to that. For both cases, there is a brightness boost at the darkest end of the scale, followed by a gradually increasing darkening effect relative to target values as one moves further and further up the scale. This amount is greater with less printing and smaller with more printing; as well, it increases with greater print size. Again, using ABW, this time in RELCOL, there is little to say about whether CB should be ON or OFF. Interestingly, however, the most accurate overall outcome for dE is the Column H case, with CB OFF and High-Speed ON. Figure 47 shows the impact of changing the ABW Tone from Darker to Normal for the complete tone range (L* 1~35, 36~70, 71~100 from left to right). I selected borderless printing because I wanted to see whether this printer would really do that accurately and without making a mess. Here are the steps, in order. Your support is critical to the success and future of photoPXL. I base the cost of ink on the current offers available in Toronto for the complete inkset, which works out to CAD1.31/ml including 13% sales tax. People making B&W prints on Legacy Fibre paper in ABSCOL would indeed see the first 14 L* levels squished into one indistinguishable blob of deep gray, which would be photographically unacceptable for many photos. It is deployable in the drivers Print Quality selector along with ABW, as Ill show when discussing ABW. Mark has been making photographs for the past six decades and started adopting a digital workflow in 1999 first with scanning film, then going fully digital in 2004. Another aspect of the prints I need to remark on is the sharpness of image detail produced from both of them. The ABW ON/OFF comparison for this paper is much simpler than it was with Legacy Platine because there is so much less to compare (whew!). This quote from Steve Jobs, as well as the support of family, friends, and loyal followers from many years are what inspired me to create this new website that is dedicated to photography. Those key matters of interest are depth of Black, hue neutrality, contrast, brightness, and linearity of the tone scale, particularly in the dark tones. Set-up of the SC-P900 as a wireless printer is now complete, and we are ready to use the coolest functionality this wireless set-up enables sending photos to print directly from an iPhone or an iPad, using the Epson Print Layout application for iOS, which I assume for present purposes that you have downloaded from the App Store and installed on an iPad. I am, for the most part, limiting the exercise to the darker end of the tone scale, from L*1 to L*35 inclusive, as a rendition of deep shadow detail is often of most interest to photographers and printers, and what we see from about L*15 ~ L*35 can be a decent indicator of what to expect further up the scale. They somehow know what you truly want to become. Steve Jobs. BTW, in case you want to access the Epson profiles apart from using them in the Print dialogs of your printing application, for macOS, you can locate them by going to (System > Library > Application Support, and from there follow the tree in Figure 6. more expensive, wider gamut (though not always useful), automated roll management functions with numerous image placement and cutting options, built-in roll cutter and maximum print length of 44 feet, versus 10 feet for the SC-P900. The linearity of both Red curves in Figure 48 is a bit shaky but would be of low visibility in print. It does not replace the printer driver or the computers printing system, but with this application, you need not go there. At PXL we believe you dont have a photograph until you can hold it in your hands. Graphically, the remapping of the dark tonal range is portrayed in Figure 30, which is the leftward graph of Figure 29 whose source target is reprinted with RELCOL and BPC, instead of ABSCOL. The other two feeds are the front feed for thicker media exceeding 0.50mm thickness, and the optional roll holder for roll paper. For the P900/P700, the driver provides new options for managing print quality, given the new print head design and the CB option. Ideally one would like all results to fall below the horizontal Red bar, set at dE = 1.0. So here goes. By step 5, all the controls needed to flavor ABW to taste are available. As well, they may achieve better hue neutrality with good profiles. So its just plain uneconomic to drink the ink if nothing else. Each of the four options possible between CB and ABW can have at least two Rendering Intents, bringing the total number of options examined here to eight. These papers can be taken as representative of gloss, luster, and matte media. The color and tonal gradations are all pretty much identical and looking very good. photoPXL will publish articles about photography and look at the many types of cameras we use to take photos, ranging from smartphones to medium format systems. It hardly makes a difference whether CB is ON or OFF once ABW is ON, in ABSCOL Rendering Intent. Owner, CEO, Publisher, Article Type: News, Reviews, Columns, MISC, This feature available to silver and gold members, Tagged With: epson, Ink Jet Printer, Epson P900, Epson Print Layout, Ink Jet, P800, epson P800, P900, New Epson SC-P700 and SC-P900 Printers Announced, Epson Introduces Reengineered SureColor P-Series Wide-Format Printers for Professional Photography, Professional Quality Prints from iPhone 13 Pro Raw Captures, Super-telephoto 600mm F4 G Master Prime Lens, International Landscape Photographer Of The Year, what is the best photo management software, a* and b* distance from 0 (the less the better), Slope of the tone curve (more slope = more contrast), position of tone curve relative to reference values, Visual inspection of the printed tone curve. PhotoPXL is an idea to create a place of community where those with a passion for photography can come to learn and share. This site will be about the community of photography, a place where young and old alike can share their stories, learn about the art and craft of photography, and gain an understanding of what it takes to Enhance Your Vision. The amounts would vary according to quite a few variables describing the character of and printing conditions for each image, and no such information is provided for anyone image to be able to produce representative averages covering many images. If anything, it is likely to further exaggerate the brightening at the bottom of the tone scale. Weve now looked at Darker and Normal tone settings in ABW, both of which are wanting for opposite reasons. Generally, Printer Manages Color is best reserved for accessing the Advanced Black& White (ABW) feature of the Epson driver to make Black and White Prints, discussed in detail later in this review. There will be no mismatches of papers and profiles, as all will be consistent between computer and printer. If you do this, it works fine. In Case H, the Luminance curve tracks its target values very closely pretty much through the in-gamut range, save for a few levels at the darkest end of the tone scale. The Capital Recovery Charge for machine usage per standard print calculated in real-time as a function of throughput is a more complex calculation, illustrated in Figure 23. This small difference of gamut volume in and of itself is very unlikely to make much difference to the appearance of printed photographs from either printer. So, by the numbers, using High-Speed ON seems fine. Epson has provided a user-friendly approach for customizing all these functions, with strategically produced nag messages to help us avoid mistakes. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. The provision of wireless connectivity, which enables printing from mobile devices using a purpose-built version of the Epson Print Layout for mobile is very cool and works well. (7) The LCD then says there is Canvas 17.01 inches loaded. Support PhotoPXL for as little as a $1. Printer Manages Color gives easy, quick, and fairly decent results. The printers small footprint will be handy for those with serious space constraints. Figure 43 shows the same comparison, but this time in RELCOL. The main interest for doing anything with glossy photo paper was to reveal any visible difference between having CB ON or OFF. Kevin Raber Keep User-Defined for the non-printable area, and in the green box select 0 for all the margins because we are printing borderless. Aha, this is IT, I said to myself as I hustled it inside the house, took a bite of lunch and got down to work. Please consider helping us grow and broaden all aspects of what we do here. The one downside regarding usability is the quality of the manual, which could benefit from explanatory improvement in various sections. But even then, its not that easy because ink also gets used for maintenance and those volumes are not reported either. Both of these cases were printed in ABSCOL and had satisfactory dE outcomes. Joining me in this adventure is long-time friend and videographer Chris Sanderson. Thank You. Rendition accuracy is very good, the average for the 48BB combined colour/B&W 48 patch-set being 1.2 dE(76) and 0.73 dE(00). When I did the P800 work about 4 years ago, I was using an i1Pro2 spectrophotometer, while I am now using an i1Pro3. First, for Media Type in the driver, there is a selection called Use Printer Settings, which if selected, means that the driver will cohere with the paper choice in the printer LCD panel (more on the LCD panel below). As a number of people making prints value linearity and neutrality in the grayscale and Epson themselves have devoted considerable effort to the B&W experience, I provide a more detailed analysis of the grayscale in the form of my granular 100 patches (L*1~100) grayscale evaluation targets, disaggregated into three sections, one each for dark, medium and light tones (Figure 29 for my custom profile). Theres a limit to how much I can say at the time of writing, because while the machine and paper costs are known, Epson has not provided a utility for reporting on ink used per print and the company has no intention of doing so, notwithstanding that they do provide it for their larger professional models (P4900 onward) and Canon has been providing it for years with the Pro-1000/2000/4000. As with all matters of the heart, youll know when you find it. Many are good; in fact, many have been created and run by friends of mine. For discussing Figure 33, the cases are identified by their column letter at the very top row of the Figure. Both options show yellow bias up to about L*8 more so with ABW than without it, then shift to moderate cyan bias upwards of L* 9 or 10. The printer produces surprisingly credible output with Printer Color Management, but obviously its a less controllable and refined workflow than possible with the application Colour Management. Let us proceed with the START HERE poster that comes with the printer and follow it, step-by-step. I turn now to the comparison of Cases F and H (Figures 50 and 51, Dark tones to Highlights Left to Right), this time with ABW_Darker ON. Instead of the first 15 levels being bunched together at L*15 (lower blue line of Figure 30), the mapping of file value L*1 is remapped to L*15, and by the time file value L* 15 is reached, the printed value maps to L*21 (dashed blue arrows), opening up tonal distinction albeit at reduced darkness and contrast relative to the image file values. Ive always felt the process of making a photograph wasntcomplete until I could hold it in my hands. At the time of writing Epson has not yet issued a user guide for the EMI, therefore I shall demonstrate (for macOS) the third-party paper installation process in the following walk-through. In the case of Hahnemuehle Bamboo, the company recommends Epson Velvet Fine Art paper as the appropriate choice (Figure EMI 3). are good. Youll find blue tape ever so neatly and precisely applied in various places, and you do need to remove ALL of it before doing anything else (Figure 4). I dont know whether these differences matter. These results may be attributable to using the default Darker tone setting in the ABW menu, and the fact that this paper is loaded with OBAs, partly explaining the cool tone of the media which ABW does not neutralize. That is because these functions are not primarily aimed at achieving any particular standard of accuracy. The comparison for RELCOL doesnt differ much, nor do any of the others discussed above. Photography for me has always been personal. The color print is of a mural in downtown Toronto done by Okuda San Miguelthat has excellent properties for this evaluation; the other is a B&W conversion of a color photo I made from a hotel room window in Paris at about 6:30 AM November 2019. If you would like to discuss this further please leave comments in our forum. Photoshop, Lightroom). As before, High Speed enables bi-directional printing (I assess it further on). The departure from the target values is excessive pretty much throughout the tone scale and shifts between Levels L*75 and L*79 from being brighter to darker relative to target values. No kidding, they really do! Epson Print Layout for iOS is only available at this time for the P700 and P900 printers. Ive done this twice already; its painless. ABW essentially over-rides the choice of Rendering Intent in Photoshop. Epson makes its profiles with CB OFF, but I can make prints from those profiles with CB ON or OFF. Publishers Note: what follows is a very significant and detailed overview of the Epson SC-P900 printer. BTW, I work in CAD. I cant get into that here. So one tries them, looks at the outcome, and decides whether one likes it or not. Figure 33 Column I case makes the same print in 2.25 minutes, so its worth looking at the extent of quality it sacrifices for printing about 10 times faster. Click Save. I tried to replicate their demonstration with my own test, making one print with CB ON and another the same but with CB OFF, and comparing (Figure 58). The same image settings are used for all three except as noted here. The 2-pt type is readable in both, and the strands of hair over the eyes clearly visible a bit more distinct in the SC-P5000 print. While the dE(76) result focuses narrowly on the bald numerical difference between the file value of the test patch and its read value from the print, the dE(2000) result is a more accurate metric of how such differences would impact the visual perception of a standard observer. or 1.51mL/sq. But first, lets finish setting up the printer. (4) Feed the canvas under the small white rollers as shown in Figures RF 6 and RF 7. The hue bias is quite similar between the two renditions, and not egregious. One would have preferred a bit less bias toward yellow in the L*2~L*6 range, but that part of the tone curve is so dark, and the extent of the bias limited enough, that in normal photographs it would pass unnoticed. Dont settle. The reason for testing this condition is that printing time with the higher quality settings, at the extreme, can stretch to 27 minutes for 51 square inches of print on a Letter size sheet. This will be a place where you can share your images with other readers and see what others are doing with theirs. A word about the photos: Starting with Figure 65 color print, this mural is 23 stories high. Epson also advised that the effect becomes more obvious if such photos are face-mounted or printed on a shiny metallic substrate.
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